YO Ranch owners in court over partnership stalemate

The Y.O. Ranch, near Mountain Home, hosts guided hunts for exotic game. It has 16 rooms for paying guests and about 400 head of cattle. The land originally was purchased by former Texas Ranger Capt. Charles A. Schreiner in 1880.

The lawsuit says the ranch is threatened by management problems and should be divided among its four owners.

2012 Charles and Christine sue Gus and Walter, asking the court to replace oral partnership with a written agreement among the four owners.

Source: Lawsuit pleadings, Kerr County

KERRVILLE — The storied Y.O. Ranch, a 27,000-acre cattle, hunting and recreational venture, is threatened by management problems and should be divided among its four owners, according to a lawsuit filed here by two of them.

Five generations of the Schreiner family have run the ranch in western Kerr County, beginning with former Texas Ranger Capt. Charles A. Schreiner, who bought it in 1880 as part of a banking, retail and cattle empire.

The ranch's problems these days appear to stem from an archaic management structure and the absence of a cohesive vision among its owners.

“Without immediate court intervention, there will be insufficient money to pay bills, employees, feed for wildlife and any other number of items past March or April,” said the suit, filed by Charles Schreiner IV and Christine C. Schreiner.

It says the oral partnership agreement among family has become dysfunctional, hobbled by 2-2 voting stalemates between the plaintiffs and lawsuit defendants Gus Schreiner and Walter Schreiner.

“The only viable method for the Y.O. Ranch Partnership to succeed is to wind up the present partnership, pay partnership debts and distribute assets such that the individual owners may formulate a sustainable new entity,” the suit states.

Gus and Walter Schreiner expressed surprise at being sued by their brother and the widow of their late brother Louis Schreiner, along with Louis and Christine Schreiner's three sons, who are nonvoting partners.

“We thought we had a management plan in place through 2014, but they changed course,” Walter Schreiner, 58, said Wednesday while waiting for a scheduled court hearing in Bandera.

The ranch, near Mountain Home, hosts guided hunts for exotic game. It has 16 rooms for paying guests and about 400 head of cattle.

Gus Schreiner, 54, said he's hurt by the plaintiffs' legal maneuvering, which included obtaining a temporary restraining order barring the parties from moving or selling any assets.

The order issued Feb. 15 by state District Judge Keith Williams also prohibits them from communicating with ranch employees and from destroying any records.

After nearly three hours of backroom talks among the parties, Williams canceled Wednesday's hearing on the plaintiffs' application for a temporary injunction.

The attorneys, who shuttled between the two sets of parties who'd staked out different spots in the justice center, declined comment.

Charles Schreiner IV, 62, traced the management dilemma to the 2001 death of his namesake father, which left the partnership with an even number of voting members.

“It's just a necessary thing for the business to go through to get cleaner guidelines on how to manage it and take it forward into the future,” he said of the suit.

Austin attorney Alex Tradd has helped run the ranch since 2010 due to problems gaining a consensus among partners to undertake major decisions, including the possible sale of land to raise needed capital, the suit says.

“Collectively, the partners have been unable to agree on a method to reduce expenditures, and to increase income,” it states.

Capt. Schreiner moved to Kerr County in 1857 after leaving the Rangers and got into the cattle business. His holdings eventually included stores, banks, livestock and more than a half-million acres of ranchland, which fueled philanthropic causes. He died in 1927.